Channel surfing the other night I came across something that I hadn’t seen for quite awhile.  No, not Mexican midget wrestling; you can catch that on LA cable access Fridays at 2AM.  I saw a Bowflex ad and I was a little shocked.  This ad was well … I don’t quite know how to say this…straight.  This made me more than a little nostalgic for those good ol’ man-on-man softcore commercials from the 80’s and 90’s.  Now those of you old enough to remember “Frankie Say…” t-shirts surely also remember these spots.  The young fair-haired man-child clad only in a headband, red gym shorts, tennis shoes and baby oil goes through a series of muscle flexing exercises while an announcer extols the virtues of the machine in his best Barry White basso.  Then after nearly ten minutes of slow pans across taut, glistening man flesh, some sweaty girl enters holding a towel to frighten all the gay away.  I’m sure that for 10 or 12 people this ad was an informative pitch for an expensive piece of exercise equipment.  For the rest of us it was in fact gay porn.  And for a kid growing up in southeastern Virginia the closest he would get to the real thing until he got out of town.

Having made it out of town the Bowflex boy faded from my memory.  That was until 7 or so years ago when the company ran a new infomercial.  We again had a shirtless young man (much more muscular than his predecessor) demonstrating the new and improved machine but this time instead of the ultra masculine voice-over we had a hunky authority figure explaining the benefits of resistance training.  Now I’m sure that the folks at Bowflex and their advertising agency intended these men to be seen as doctor/patient, coach/athlete, or trainer/client, which is no doubt how some people saw it.  Yours truly, and many other slightly pervy people, knew that this wasn’t as much coach/athlete as it was daddy/boy.  Space doesn’t allow a full explanation of this dynamic so to those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about…ask your gay friends.

The new ads currently airing caught me off guard not in spite of all the previous homoeroticism but because of it.  This was not your gay uncle’s Bowflex infomercial.  This was straight people— straight, fat, white people to be exact.  Instead of eye-catching beautiful people of either sex, you have Mr. and Mrs. Strip Center talk about how much weight they’ve lost as a result of thrice weekly workouts.  But they saved the best (or worst) for last: a fat piggy man who is now a thin douche bag looks into the camera and says,

My fat clothes?  I give them to my fat friends.

It is an amazing transformation, a physical transformation anyway.  I just can’t figure out how he got such a large piece of apparatus into his trailer home.

Now I’m sure that this new tact on behalf of Bowflex sells a great deal more exercise equipment and that, in the cyber age, boy-loving-boys in the hinterlands aren’t looking to infomercials for daydream fodder, but the sentimental part of me misses the good old days when the guys in weight loss commercials were people who already worked out 5 days a week, hadn’t eaten a carbohydrate since they were 12 and knew that a layer of baby oil expertly applied was all that stood between a 15 year old boy and ecstasy.

Bob Speck lives and writes in Los Angeles.  He has no idea why.

So I have to go to Chicago. I’m actually kind of happy about this because I’ve never been to Chicago and most importantly someone else is paying.  As business trips go this one is pretty short, out on Saturday back on Monday, no big deal.  Because I’ll be meeting the Chairman of the Board (no, not Sinatra) and because I like to make a good impression overall, I thought I’d do something crazy and get some new pants.  In retrospect, I guess I should have set out on an easier mission, like finding a piece of the true cross.  I began my quest at The Grove.  For those not familiar (and why would you be?), The Grove is a big outdoor shopping mall with all the same stores as an indoor shopping mall but laid out in a way to give people the impression that they’re shopping on Rodeo Drive instead of at a big outdoor shopping mall.  I went to some of the trendier stores but as a rule they’re too expensive and I’m now a hair too old for what they sell.  As has happened many times in the past I ended up at one of the mall’s big chain stores.  I don’t want to give any plugs so let’s just call it “Plantain Federation.”

The Plantain Federation at The Grove is one of the nicest Plantain Federations you’re ever likely to see.  It really is beautiful; more Milanese palazzo than retail chain store, it covers two floors and contains more white marble that Arlington National Cemetery.  The men’s section is on the second floor and I climb the wrought iron staircase in pursuit of my grey or black, light wool quarry.  I am truly impressed by what I see.  Pants, shirts, ties, jackets— a menswear store worthy of the finest European grand magasin.  I begin my search at a wall of racks all holding just what I’m looking for.  I work my through each rack from front to back— size 28, 30, 32, 34, 35 (35?), 36, 36, 36.  No 38.  No 38?  Well they must be somewhere else, on a table maybe.  I find a table and it’s the same thing all over again.  After 10 minutes of excavation EUREKA, pair of 38s. They’re not exactly what I’m looking for but at this point I’ll take ‘em.  I’ve been a size 38 for most of the last 10 years but I try them on just to be safe.  Now I don’t know in what parallel universe these pants were made or what creature they were made for but I do know this much.  The parallel universe does not have carbohydrates and the (supposedly male) creatures for which they were made do not have external reproductive organs.  These bad boys are tight.  So I peel out of them and check the label to make sure it matches the tag.  Sometimes pants get tagged incorrectly but this time no such luck.  Knowing that I couldn’t fit into these pants and knowing that there was no way I was going to find a size 40 left me feeling defeated and a little depressed.  Have I gained that much weight?  There was only one thing to do.  That’s right, go to dinner.

Many have said it and it does bear repeating:

Korean BBQ doesn’t fix everything.

So in a last ditch effort to find myself some new duds without making a trip to the big and tall men’s store I fell into one last chain store.  A store that I felt I’d outgrown and that was, to be frank, a little beneath me.  And there, lo and behold, were a size 38 pants just as nice as the groin crushing ones from the night before in several styles and colors and even more miraculous they fit.  I have no doubt that after a little work at the gym (the gym I’ve yet to join), I’ll be able to walk into  Plantain Federation with my head held high, pick out whatever catches my eye and have it fit.  Until that time it’s nice to know I’ve found a store to fill the GAP.

Bob Speck lives and writes in Los Angeles.  He has no idea why.

Having reached the advanced age of forty-three, I’ve found it necessary to seek out the skills of a chiropractor.  It’s nothing major, but age, a car accident a decade or so ago, and carrying around 35 extra pounds have created the need to have my spine wrenched back into place on a regular basis. I’ve long needed this service but never considered it until moving to Los Angeles a few months ago. This is mainly because I was busy, my pain wasn’t very severe and a certain degree of physical discomfort is what life in New York is all about. But after the stress of a cross country move, a (thankfully) brief stint in retail and a searing pain up and down my left leg, I knew that something had to be done. My partner Jeffrey (who is far more tolerant of things holistic, herbal and eastern than I) had already found a chiropractor in the deep rich heart of gayest Los Angeles and being inordinately fond of most things deep, rich and gay I decided to give him a try.

The office is in a little bi-level strip center in West Hollywood which really isn’t all that extraordinary. Hundreds of small businesses, many of them medical offices, operate in similar situations. What grabs one’s attention isn’t the office itself but its neighbors. Most notably a “boot camp” style gym. Not being a very physical guy (to be honest, yogurt is more active) I was not familiar with this type of establishment and in the interest of full disclosure I’m still not. Everything I know about this place I’ve derived from sitting in the strip center’s common area before appointments and observing. This activity involves two of my favorite things.  Foremost there’s sitting. I am so fond of sitting that this forum simply does not allow me the space to fully address my feelings on the subject so I will instead be publishing a slim volume of sonnets early next year. Next there is man-watching as the courtyard is something of an outdoor locker room. And while I can almost hear you dear readers say to yourselves, “Yes, yes. We know,” my guess is that you don’t fully know. You see, while Los Angeles lacks many things (a soul and decent bagels being only two) good looking guys isn’t one. And by “good looks,” I of course mean mind-numbing, chill-inducing, soul-killing beauty. As stated earlier I have no idea what goes on inside this place, but I do know that it involves some type of physical exertion, house music played at near ear-splitting levels, and verbal abuse. Sort of like a Saturday night in Chelsea without the drugs.

The treatment itself in pretty box standard for chiropractic from what I can tell. One lays on a table face down, places one’s face through a hole specifically designed for that purpose, has warm weighted packs placed on one’s back and (if the doctor is feeling a little kinky that day) electrodes that deliver a not quite painful jolt of current at predetermined intervals.  One is then left to “relax” for 15 minutes.  After which, an affable former aerobics instructor slash leather daddy attempts to push one’s spine through one’s rectum, twist one’s head off one’s shoulders and force one’s leg into positions that veterans of Cirque du Soleil never dreamed possible. Ahhhh, I feel better already.

While I’m getting good results from my weekly adjustment, I don’t know that I’m ready for some of the office’s more exotic offerings.  The acupuncture and Chinese herbs will just have to wait.

As I’m leaving the office a few weeks ago a brochure catches my eye,

Healing Waters: Hydro-colonic Therapy in a Supportive Gay Environment.

I dismiss it out of hand but notice in small print just below,

Adjacent to Bodyworks: A Gym for Men.

Well…

Bob Speck lives and writes in Los Angeles.  He has no idea why.

I live in Los Angeles and I walk. I’ll give you time to process that…

I live in LA and I walk. As a very recent transplant, walking is not an alien concept to me.  However, tell the average Angelino that you walk, and your admission will likely be met with a combination of disbelief and pity.

You walk?

They ask, their upper lips twitching ever so slightly.

You mean that you hike, like Runyon Canyon or Griffith Park?

They ask, some visibly choking back tears.

For you out-of-towners, Runyon Canyon is a barren crag in the Hollywood Hills, a climb up which is a level of physical activity usually reserved for prisoners of war on forced marches. This little fact aside, it is unfathomably popular with the LA fit set and their dogs. And you really haven’t lived until you’ve seen an impossibly thin would-be actress dragging her hyperventilating French bulldog up a narrow mountain pass. Griffith Park is a sprawling complex consisting of a zoo, an amphitheater, two museums, an observatory and acre after acre of relatively unsoiled wilderness that annually busts into flames threatening wildlife and the lives and homes of near by residents.

No, I walk.  Like to work or the store or dinner.

Gape-mouthed stares usually follow. The kind of reaction one would expect after confessing to regularly appearing in pornography or having six toes on one foot.

I guess some background is in order. I have recently arrived in L.A. after living in New York City for the last 20 years and prior to that a brief stay abroad in Paris.  My driver’s license having long ago expired, I haven’t been behind the wheel in any meaningful way in almost two decades. In the past, this has proved a minor inconvenience at worst, my previous philosophy being something along the lines of “If you can’t get there by subway it’s probably not worth the trip, thank you very much.”  Now I’m some kind of mythological beast that people have always heard about but never seen, a pudgy unicorn ambling east on Santa Monica Blvd. near La Brea.

“So what does any of this have to do with fitness?” I hear you ask. And the sad truth is not a whole hell of a lot. Because even though I don’t drive here in the place that gave the world the right turn on red, I walk less than I did in New York. This isn’t because I’ve become even more slothful than I was before (granted, being somewhere with my feet up eating cookies is my idea of a good time, but even I have my limits) but because some strange conspiracy of climate and landscape almost forces one to ride. Even if the vehicle of your transport is (gasp) a city bus. This is, after all, the town were the swanker gyms offer valet parking to spare their members the arduous sojourn from the parking lot to the front door. Of course, once inside these “fitness centers” the very people who couldn’t park their own cars push themselves to the very limits of human endurance in classes like Power Yoga, Power Pilates or Power Spinning. The very thought of which makes me want to take a power nap.

I know that for all my snarkiness if I wish to reach a level of fitness that allows me to tie my shoes without getting winded, then I will have to sacrifice myself to one of these chrome-plated, neon lit temples of sweat. I just have to find the right one for me, one that best suites my personality.  A gym with comfy chairs.  And…cookies?

Bob Speck lives and writes in Los Angeles.  He has no idea why.

I’ve crossed over to the dark side, abandoned all hope, thrown in the towel, read the writing on the wall, and turned my back on all I hold dear.

That’s right…. I’m on a diet.

No cookies, cakes, pies or chips. No pizza, General Tso’s Chicken, BBQ or fried dough of any kind. Just that thin, flavorless, grayish-green, vitamin-fortified, gruel-like substance you’re forced to eat when you leave the matrix.

Ok, I’m exaggerating…a little.

I’m on the Weight Watchers Flex Plan. Wheee! It’s actually a pretty cool set-up. The best part is the whole thing is done on line, no meetings. Now, I’m well aware that people who go to meetings tend to be more successful in their pursuit of chafe free summers. I’m also aware that if I were to attend a typical meeting I would more than likely be killed and possibly eaten by a large number of protein deprived housewives and office workers from West Covina who wouldn’t appreciate my “unique” outlook on life. So I’m keeping it strictly cyber.

The plan itself is pretty simple. A point value is assigned to almost every edible substance in the known universe. Depending on one’s sex, height, weight and level of daily activity, one is given a maximum number of points per day. I am allowed 35 points a day and an extra 35 points a week to use any way I wish.  Just to put things in perspective, I as a man at 6′1″ and 240lbs  get 35 points a day while 30 points a day would represent the average daily food intake of a Rufous hummingbird. Not a Lucifer, or Green Violet-ear, but a Rufous.

I can also earn “Activity Points” by, well… doing stuff. Walking for 20 minutes at a moderate pace earns you 2 points, at a brisk pace 4 points. Running the New York City Marathon, 6 points. As a side benefit, I get access to the WW message boards. Some of the posts are in turns heartbreaking and hilarious. It’s hard to feel bad about eating that Oreo after reading a post by a woman who ate her son’s birthday cake…all of it…in the car…on the way home from the bakery.

I hear my detractors already.

He’ll never make it.  They’ll find him on the kitchen floor unconscious surrounded by rappers and clutching what’s left of a Hostess Cupcake.

Maybe they will. Who’s to say? Maybe I’ll drop 40 pounds and look great.  But I know one thing …I’m so hungry I could eat a horse.

I wonder how many points are in a horse?

Bob Speck lives and writes in Los Angeles.  He has no idea why.